Emergency housing inevitable in national crisis

The Government’s emergency housing announcement is the inevitable consequence of National’s failure to address the housing crisis and its stubborn determination to sell-off state houses instead of building more, Labour’s Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford says.

“New Zealand is witnessing an unprecedented rise in homelessness as a generation of Kiwi families fall between the cracks opened up by John Key allowing the housing crisis to spiral out of control.

“There are thousands of desperate families living in camp grounds, garages and even in cars. This is a direct result of National’s refusal to upset the mega profits of foreign speculators, land-bankers and the super-rich.

“If that wasn’t bad enough National is running down state housing, stripping it of resources, and selling off billions of dollars of state land and housing when it should be building more houses.

“It is a national shame.

“You just have to walk through the centre of our main cities to see the rise in homeless people begging for money or food. New Zealanders hate to see poverty and squalor on our streets.

“New Zealand needs decent provision of emergency housing, but if National was willing to build more houses, tackle speculators and cancel its plan to sell-off state housing, the problem it is trying to fix wouldn’t be nearly so bad,” Phil Twyford says.